The Odyssey

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The Odyssey

• By Homer
• ca. 700 BC

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Characteristics of the Epic

• Long story
• Deeds of a hero
• Determines fate of a whole people
• Begins in medias res middle of action
• Involvement of the gods
• Magic or supernatural events
• Characteristics of oral tradition like
  repetition
• Beautiful Language often verse

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View of the gods

• Arbitrary--punish or reward as they feel theyve
  been wronged or honored
• Not all powerful they debate on Mt. Olympus
  dont always know everything that happens
• No one god in charge--even Zeus must accommodate
  other gods when they get angry
• Do care for humankind--Odysseus has suffered
  enough
• They are shapeshifters

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View of Man

• Man must worship and obey the gods
• A son must earn his own reputationTelémachos
  must become his own hero
• Men want women for their beauty, sexuality,
  possessions
• Men are basically physical--eating, drinking,
  lusting, fighting, competing
• Man is at least partly responsible for own fate

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View of Women

• Possessions--responsibility of their fathers,
  then husbands, then sons. Every woman
  categorized as maid, wife, widow, or
  whore.
• Powerless
• Must scheme to survive
• Penelope smarter than average--has outwitted
  suitors for nearly 10 years

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Gender Complexities

• Athena appears to Telémakhos as a man, partly to
  hide her godhood, partly because a man could move
  freely within Akhaian society
• As a father, she makes a man of him--urges him
  to seek his fathers fate and to fight his
  mothers suitors
• Until then, Telémachos has been emasculated

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The Man Odysseus

• no mortal half so wise (85)
• His wisdom hasnt protected him from grief and
  harm
• How wise is he, really?
• LOOK FOR EVIDENCE FOR OR AGAINST OS WISDOM
  THROUGHOUT EPIC
• A brilliant schemer--note all ways Homer has of
  saying this

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Book One

• After Odysseus sacked Troy, he was detained by
  Nymph Kalypso
• All gods pitied him except Poseidon.
• Athene champions O, goes to Telemachos disguised
  as a mentor and tells him O will return.

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Book Two

• T. had no father to teach him to fight so he
  must learn from Athena
• Suitors ridicule him, but he stands his ground
• T. appeals to suitors responsibility to care for
  widows and orphans (his mother and he) , rather
  than taking advantage of them the suitors have
  been there so long they are eating them out of
  house and home!
• Penelope promises suitors she will marry once she
  finishes weaving a rug to honor O. Everyday she
  weaves, and every night she unravels what she
  weaves. Suitors think it is magic, but eventually
  after many years, she gets caught.
• Suitors angrily demand she marry one of them and
  make him king of Ithaca.
• Ts mentor actually Athena in disguise claims
  the suitors not as bad as those who do nothing
  about them.

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Book Three

• We see several scenes of real Greek life
• sacrifice of bulls/blood and fire offerings
• respect for elders is important but lacking in
  the suitors
• hospitality to strangers extremely important
  thus Penelope does not throw the suitors out
• sharing of war stories
• death as sending one into the underworld
• concern for ones geneology thats how you know
  whether you can trust this person

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At Palace of Lord Nestor

• Story is told for first time of Agamémnon
• Essentially Agamemnon to help Menelaus
  recapture his wife Helen, A sacrificed his opwn
  daughter. As wife Clyaemnestra wants revenge and
  kills A when he returns from Troy.
• Story is told for first time of Meneláos
• Everyone wanted to marry Helen because she was
  the most beautiful woman in Greece and her father
  Tyndareus feared there would be war amongst the
  suitors.
• Odysseus suggested that each suitor swear an oath
  to stand behind whomever Tyndareus selected and
  be ready at any time in the future to defend the
  favored bridegroom against any wrong done to him
  in respect to the marriage. Everyone agreed to
  these terms.
• It may be important to realize that Helen really
  had little say-so in this arrangement. Menelaus
  was a political choice on her father's part. He
  had wealth and power, mainly through his brother
  Agamemnon, but for Helen, he did not offer the
  good looks and glamour of some of her other
  suitors.

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Book 4 Helen Menelaus

• Helen marries Menelaus
• Helen marries (or lives with) Paris
• Helen repents what she has done
• Helen doesnt betray O. in the Trojan camp
• Helen does try to get Greeks to answer from
  within Trojan horse
• Helen asks forgiveness of Menelaus and receives it

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Book Five

• Odysseus with Kalypso--
• She represents one of the temptations--or life
  trials--that he must win against. She represents
  sexual temptation, or being slave to the sensual
  rather than focusing on the spiritual.
• Because of Athena, Zeus orders Hermes to tell
  Kalypso to release O
• O makes a raft which Poseidon sinks, but O
  reaches land

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Book Six

• Skhería Island, Alkínoös kingdom, is perfect
  place for Athena to send O.--island of
  shipbuilders
• Once more, Athena shape shifts, this time into
  form of a girl to stir interest in the stranger O
• Nausika finds O and Athena makes him look godlike

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Book Seven

• Athena appears as girl child
• We learn why Poseidon loves these people--they
  are his descendants
• Arêtê is woman of wisdom settles disputes
  between just men
• O begs for is granted conveyance home
• Odysseus asked to tell story of his
  escape--repetition of part of what weve already
  heard

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Book Eight

• Athena stirs interest in the stranger as O
  reaches another island
• Kings court speaks of Os adventures, but O does
  not reveal himself
• King says O should be rewarded
• Only then does O reveal himself

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Book Nine

• Odysseus answer is to tell his story of the last
  9-10 years
• These episodes are, perhaps, symbolic of the
  variety of temptations that O. must overcome to
  return home
• Perhaps like the things that Gilgamesh must see
  and do in order to become wise

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Episodes and Temptations

• Kalypso--lust
• the Lotus Eaters (drugged)--sloth
• the Cyclopês (slaughtered and stole sheep and
  goats)--unthinking violence
• The story of Nobody
• Giant asks Poseidon to curse O

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Book Ten Episodes

• the Aiolians (give O a bag containing wind so he
  can get home, but his sailors open the bag of
  winds thinking it is treasure)--greed, jealousy,
  lack of prudence, lack of vigilance.
• the Laestrygonians (they are cannibals)--gluttony,
  lack of respect for life.
• Circe (magically turns men into pigs)--lack of
  reason, which differentiates us from animals.

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Book Eleven Episodes

• Journey to the Underworld--journey into wisdom,
  death and resurrection myth. O
• Must accept that death is unavoidable.
• Learns to appreciate life as it is--accept.
• Sees that it is better to have lowliest life than
  highest honor in death. Once dead, there is no
  more returning to the world of men.

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View of Women

• Klytemnéstra and Helen both blamed for what
  happened to their husbands and to whole nations.
• But theres more to the story. K. grieved over
  her husband sacrificing their daughter Helen, in
  some accounts, was kidnapped and held hostage.
• Indulge a woman never,/ and never tell her all
  you know
• Agamemnon (from hades) warns O. against trusting
  Penelope enough to just walk back in at home--
• give no warning./ The day of faithful wives is
  gone forever Thats exactly what O. does in Book
  XVII.

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Book Twelve

• Sirensmagical singers in the ocean that lure
  men to drown O has all men plug their ears but
  he is tied to a mast so he can listen safely.
  Danger of women and sexuality lust for
  knowledge.
• Skylla (eats 6 men of every ship that passes by
  O does not warn his men afraid they will stop the
  journey) O. learns guilt of his actions
  determining fate of/hurting other people.
• Charybdis (a whirpool that sink ships )O learns
  of despair as most men die

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Book Thirteen

• The Phaiakans do convey O home, and Poseidon
  punishes them
• Athena shape-shifts Odysseus for the first time
  in to an old man.
• He must be willing to be patient, old, ridiculed.
• O must be willing to be powerless.

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Book Fourteen

• Hospitality, courtesy still alive on Ithaka, but
  in old swineherds hut. Nobility becomes matter
  of behavior, not birth.
• In Odysseus home, hospitality is usurped, not
  granted.
• Note throughout the whole last half of the epic
  that O. can lie convincingly at a moments notice.

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Book Fifteen-Nineteen

• Story speeds up, moving toward final revelation
  of who Odysseus is and the retaking of his house.
• Only dog and old maid initially recognize O, but
  O reveals himself to T
• Sign of how far Os house has fallen that even
  beggars and servant girls can be rude toward
  strangers with impunity totally against Greek
  values.
• Penelopes unsure it is really O, so designs a
  contest to shoot an arrow thru 12 axes

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Book Twenty

• Once more, there is a personal relationship
  between Athena and Odysseus.
• Nonetheless, the gods arbitrarily make people do
  things that seem bad to us (causing the suitors
  to become more and more belligerent with
  Telemachus, O. as stranger, and the servants).

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Book Twenty-One

• The test of the bow maintains level of suspense
  through the end of the epic--
• Penelope says she will marry the best archer
• T failed 3 times, would have succeeded on 4th but
  O stops him
• All suitors fail
• O succeeds

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Book Twenty-Two

• This begins the denouement, the tying up of
  things, the setting right of things.
• Scurrilous suitors killed 1 by 1--differentiating
  detail for many.
• Unfaithful servants, both men and women, punished.

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Book Twenty-Three

• Reunion of the wandering husband and faithful
  wife (both amusing and tender)
• In making him wait, Penelope gives him back some
  of what shes taken in last 20 years.
• Penelope still wary, afraid some trick of the
  gods.
• Amusing banter of 2 people who love each other
  and feel comfortable in others presence.
• Penelope sets the test of the bed
• Essentially bed cannot be moved but only O
  would know this.

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Book Twenty-Four

• Last loose ends--
• Achilles and Agamémnon share war stories in
  Hades.
• Shades of suitors seen in Hades.
• This war has brought death to them all, but in
  different forms.
• O. pays respects to his aged father.
• Outrage and injury have been avenged with death
  of suitors
• Parents of suitors appeased with help of Athena.